


world on fire

by theunluckybreak



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Assassin!AU, Death, M/M, Suicide Attempt, Violence, brief bondage, fucked up thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-14
Updated: 2012-08-14
Packaged: 2017-11-12 03:50:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/486372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theunluckybreak/pseuds/theunluckybreak
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry hasn’t been born to be saved and Liam hasn’t been born to be anyone’s saviour. Yet, here they are.</p>
            </blockquote>





	world on fire

**Author's Note:**

> This isn't even a story, I guess. It's more of a too-long poem, or really not because I'm not at all poetic. Some of it might not make sense to you, but I swear that it all makes sense in my head. I'm sorry, or whatever. 
> 
> This is a complete fill for [this prompt](http://1dkinkmeme.livejournal.com/6347.html?thread=5809867#t5809867). It's a Lirry assassin!AU

Liam remembers a smile, a cheeky grin, and hips moving sinfully. He remembers a laugh, eyes sparkling, and the heat of fire. He knows the boy is trouble before they’re even introduced, but even so there’s still a knowing look in the boy’s eyes when their fingers meet and their hands clasp through the electricity. 

His name is Harry. 

Liam can hear his boss’s rusty voice clear in the back of his mind. _Don’t fuck up, don’t fuck this up, don’t ever fuck up._ But when has Liam ever fucked up? He’s been doing this for years, can already feel a tired edge to his young body and a heavy weight on his broad shoulders, and he has never fucked up. He’s the responsible one, the one who gets the job done. 

“You must be Liam”, he says and Liam never, not even once during the rest of his life, asks how Harry knew. He doesn’t ask because he knows he won’t get an answer. But his grip on Harry’s hand tightens before he lets go, in a silent confirmation, and he swears he can even hear angels sing when the boy starts moving his hips again. Side to side, like a round and golden pendulum.

And like in all other stories, this one has a beginning. And it begins with a cheeky smile, fire and guns. For Harry has been sent to do the same job as Liam and instead of working against each other, they cooperate. 

Harry’s laugh, echoing in the darkness and the crisp air, is the last thing Liam hears before the fire sets and the shooting starts. Stars can’t be seen on the sky when they run out of the building as the smoke creates too thick of clouds to let any precious light through. But Liam imagines them and he imagines them in the other boy’s eyes. Harry laughs until he settles for a smile, his face stained dirty by ashes and grime, and Liam has never felt as alive during a job as he has during this one. Harry pours more gas onto the ground and together they watch quietly as the fire dances before their eyes, like magic and fireworks together in passion. 

It’s beautiful and peaceful in its own disturbing way with nothing but dull screams escaping through the fire, but the calm is disturbed as a man with a gun comes running out through the flames, all red eyes and a piercing scream, and the man aims at Harry. Liam glances at the boy, sees a calm smile and an unimpressed raised eyebrow, and Liam puts himself in front of him and raises his gun. Two shots, sharp and deafening in the silent night, are heard as Liam shoots the man. And he swears he can feel those shots all the way in to his own dark heart, rooting with the beating there. 

He lowers his gun again and turns back to Harry, watches the stars in his eyes, and the leather in his own jacket screams as Harry pulls him in by his collar. He doesn’t kiss. He bites into Liam’s bottom lip, chews on it tenderly and lets his tongue soothe any pain – then he spits it back out again like it didn’t taste any good and was inedible. But he smiles and pulls quick and dangerous fingers through Liam’s hair, and Liam knows he’s been thanked. 

And he promises Liam that they’ll see each other again, and Liam knows they shouldn’t. But they will.

-

Liam isn’t known for his grand gestures. He has always done his job right and never spared any lives. He has never saved anyone. Until Harry, that is. Because he wasn’t born to be the hero of this world, he was born to be the villain. And he hasn’t yet found any way to escape the world they’re living in. 

“I told you we’d see each other again”, he says and pulls fingers through Liam’s hair for a second time. 

Harry hasn’t been born to be the hero either. 

They’re in a very public place, in an environment in which they don’t fit, and they’re the desirable yin to the rest of the people’s perfect yang. Liam doesn’t know how they find each other, because neither was looking, but he guesses destiny has a way of playing wicked games like that. 

All around him people are laughing, until they’re not, and Harry moves his hips back and forth, and pretends like the rest of the world doesn’t notice him. He smiles and climbs the bar stool Liam’s sitting on and straddles his lap. Liam’s strong and cruel hands are allowed to touch the hips he’s been thinking, but not dreaming, of and he wonders if there’s a bubble surrounding them and if they are the only ones truly existing in this world. Truly alive. 

“You should be dead”, Liam says and voices the bitter truth he heard two months ago. Harry was supposed to have died on their mission, and Liam shouldn’t have saved him. 

And that’s what happens when you mess with destiny. Things turn wrong. 

“But I’m not”, he answers and his teeth sink into the fine line of muscle in Liam’s neck, and Liam wonders if this is another thank you. 

He wishes the younger boy would lift his head and press his lips against his and show Liam how grateful he really is, but he doesn’t and Liam guesses Harry isn’t grateful after all.

And he knows that Harry won’t kiss him later either when Liam pulls him with him back to the place he’s staying at to fuck him until the bed starts protesting, because Liam did wrong and here they both are. 

“You should be spanked for bad behaviour”, Harry whispers into his ear and Liam’s hands get rougher and pulls Harry’s hips closer so he can feel the effect he’s having on him – feel how hard and throbbing he is. He hums a low laughter and his curly hair brushes Liam’s cheek as he pulls back to look at him. The muscles in Liam’s neck strain and he wants to lean up and capture Harry’s lips even though he isn’t allowed to, and quick index fingers form an X over Liam’s lips. Harry presses his own lips against them and kisses hard until Liam swears he can almost feel the real thing through them. And he imagines the taste of honey and sunshine, and strawberries and cream. 

Harry hasn’t been born to be saved and Liam hasn’t been born to be anyone’s saviour. 

Yet, here they are.

-

Liam compares his feelings and emotions to the songs he hears on the radio – in the background of some store or in the stolen car on his way to a job. He never registers what the people sing of, but he imagines some of them would want to sing about Harry. 

Hips sway and tease as the boy undresses and Liam already misses holding them in his tight grip. He wonders if he can put any ownership on those hips and the ass that comes with them, and he wonders if he could steal them and forever make them his. Harry slowly pulls his own leather jacket off – pale beige in contrast to Liam’s black one – and tight leather protests and Liam gets it. He’d like to stay in contact with Harry’s skin too if he could. 

The younger boy grins at the other boy and spins himself slowly around with arms raised high, and shows his naked body up for Liam like he is a prize won and now Liam has to inspect it. And Liam has to stop and question his own sanity, for there is no doubt in his mind that a boy like Harry doesn’t exist. But then again, such perfection is unimaginable and Liam might be a dreamer, but he has never dreamt of this. 

Harry bends himself over and places his hands on the edge of the bed and presents his ass for Liam like it is now his for the taking, like he has earned it. Liam grasps hips made of bone and flesh and sin, and pushes his boxer clad hard-on against the awaiting crack. He grinds up and down to make the other boy see how much he wants him, how much he aches for him, how much he needs more and to be inside of him. His heart and his stomach and his head throb with the arousal, and he bends down and nips at Harry’s hip and softly licks the pain away. 

He wonders how this can be enough, how being inside of Harry can be enough and out of nowhere he has pulled out his pair of handcuffs – stained with dry blood from the interrogation the day before – and he chains Harry to the bed with every intention of keeping him there forever. 

“Now you can punish me for being alive”, Harry says calmly and Liam doesn’t like the way it sounds. 

He’d like to think he keeps Harry’s hips pressed to the mattress for hours – licking, nipping, tasting. And Harry doesn’t moan or writhe his body like everyone else. He waits and keeps patient and lets Liam take his time of worshipping. Sometimes he pulls at his chains and laughs softly when he realizes yet another time that he can’t get out of them. Then he demands _more, rougher, harder, lick, suck, deeper and swallow_ and Liam hopes Harry’s kiss will taste as good as his cum. 

And the feeling of insanity pulses again through his veins as he slides into a hole a perfect fit for him and fucks Harry face first into the bed. He hears songs of sin, darkness, stars and fire in his head and he thinks that if this is his way of punishing Harry, then he might as well be rewarding himself.

-

Deceiving, thick smoke plays around Harry possessively. It swirls, dances and chases air that needs to be poisoned. He licks his lips and smiles and sucks on the glowing stick, cheeks going hollow, and Liam imagines Harry’s an angel standing in the fiery, narrow gates of hell. 

He loathes the poisonous stick for Harry seems to love it so. 

Harry convinces him to unlock the handcuffs, because _a good smoke is what you need after some good fucking_ , and Liam instantly regrets it and fears that Harry might somehow slip away from him. Disappear. 

But Harry has other ideas in mind, almost like he has read Liam’s thoughts, and locks each of the cuffs around each of their wrists. Then, after prying the key out of Liam’s fisted hand, he plays with it and jokingly pretends to swallow it. Liam stares and Harry laughs, and yanks at the chain so Liam is pulled closer and Harry can straddle his thighs. 

He whispers “Now we can stay like this together, forever”, into Liam’s ear and then he leans back and sucks at his glowing stick. 

There’s an even emptiness inside of Liam – more like an itch of restlessness – which begs to be filled and for all his life Liam has ignored that feeling because in this world that hole inside of him can never be erased. That hole inside of him is what makes him work, what makes him _continue._

And he still remembers his boss’s voice in his head clearly. _Don’t fuck up, don’t fuck this up, don’t ever fuck up._ Liam knows what he’s talking about, but he’s afraid he has stopped listening.

Harry exhales the smoke which has, in Liam’s mind, possibly for hours been occupying his lungs, and he does it so slowly like the smoke is his lover and he would never want to let it go. Liam reaches eager fingers out, to try and catch the smoke, but it sippers through his fingers like a frightened ghost and instead stings his eyes until they tear up. And Harry laughs softly and lets the cigarette rest between his lips while he rakes long fingers through Liam’s hair, and twines them hard enough to make it hurt as he brings Liam closer. Lets Liam kiss his naked shoulder softly. 

Liam has been waiting for signs to tell him what to do, has been waiting for any indication to tell him what’s right and wrong, because Liam can’t see it clearly and he doesn’t think he ever will. Is this, right here, God’s way of punishing them or the Devil’s way of rewarding them? Liam takes one look into Harry’s eyes and sees playful deceit in those shiny emeralds, and he knows that it’s all the same and it doesn’t matter. It shouldn’t matter.

The boy withdraws his investigating fingers and lays down to rests his head in Liam’s lap, exhales smoke into Liam’s face and Liam breathes it in slowly like his life depends on the poisonous air. Harry smiles, fine eyelashes resting on his lower eyelid, and Liam can’t help but steal the glowing stick – pull it roughly from the other boy’s fingers – and put it in between his own lips. Because it’s as close to Harry’s lips as he’ll come right now, perhaps as close he’ll ever come. He listens to the cuffs rattling around their wrists, keeping them together, and he thinks that if he has to poison himself to have Harry’s lips, then so be it. 

-

They whisper secrets into each other’s ears. They aim for the same person, bodies pressed together in their tiny, invisible bubble, and they whisper lies and truths which are shocking enough to make heads turn. 

Harry smiles and they shoot. 

Afterwards they share money Harry shouldn’t even be earning, and Liam thinks they’re both doomed. It’s a secret in its own way how they keep on finding each other in the world without looking. Liam thinks that he could go to hell and back, and he’d still meet Harry somewhere halfway. 

“The screaming bothers me sometimes”, Harry whispers in a merciless confession. 

Liam bites his own tongue and wonders if he’s missing a heart and a soul, because the screaming has never bothered him. Ever. Maybe Harry is some kind of saint, one of those who care for the diseased as well as end their misery. Maybe he’s got sensitive ears. 

They lose each other again only to find each other in the most difficult of situations. Harry finds Liam with a deep cut in his shoulder and covered in another man’s crimson blood, and the sky is cloudless and filled with the stars Liam dreams of. The younger boy’s eyes sparkle as he jumps into Liam’s arms carelessly and wraps hips and legs around his waist, and Liam is confident to know he can carry both of them despite any wounds or any pain, if he’ll ever need to. 

He realizes he’s been wrong this whole time, Harry’s eyes aren’t stars – they’re galaxies and fragments of other worlds and Liam would love to disappear in them if he could.

Long and soft fingers trace Liam’s lips and Liam impatiently pushes his forehead against Harry’s and wants desperately to have what should be his. 

“If I were to fall from this rooftop”, Harry whispers and Liam knows this is another secret just for him. “Then I would bring you with me.”

The wind blows in their hair like a warning sent from heaven and this raw perfection even makes the angels afraid of singing. Harry’s clothes get stained with the blood Liam carries, and the boy places a warm hand over the burning wound in Liam’s shoulder. And Liam thinks he won’t be rewarded and hopes breathing and sharing the same air with Harry will be enough for him and this lifetime. But Harry smiles and bends his head lower, tormenting slow, until his lips have closed over Liam’s, and his tongue has delved into Liam’s mouth. 

Liam’s head explodes into a million pieces of fine glass, as Harry’s arm around his neck tugs him closer and deeper and their tongues meet tenderly and searchingly, until Liam reaches his head further up to capture this moment fully and meet Harry properly. He doesn’t taste of honey and sunshine, and strawberries and cream, like Liam has imagined he would. He tastes of smoke and deceit, and hot chocolate and marshmallows, and it makes Liam’s head spin with madness. 

He still holds on to Harry’s hips, and Harry holds onto his shoulder and neck, and right now the world is dancing and spinning and he’d love to throw them both off the roof. Together. 

Later, when Harry stitches Liam’s shoulder up with only raw liquor as any relief of pain, he does an ugly job of it thanks to Liam being unable to keep away from his lips. He bites and he bruises, and Harry’s lips are left puffy and raw. The wound will turn into a scar, and it will forever remind Liam of Harry’s lips and their first kiss. 

-

“I think I love you”, Harry whispers into Liam’s ear, and Liam doesn’t think the world is fair enough. 

He thinks it’s ruled by divine, selfish love which only creates pain and suffering for those in it. It’s not fair, because they can’t choose another world to live in – they can’t escape. But Liam has been dreaming of escaping for years now. To disappear from the pain and suffering. And for that he is weak. 

“Don’t”, he warns and pushes the younger boy slightly away from him. But they’re still close, impossible to separate fully. 

Harry smiles and isn’t afraid of any warnings or threats. He doesn’t think the world is ruled by divine, selfish love – has never believed that. When Liam had asked him, the young boy had said: 

“The world is ruled by me.”

And that’s the cold, selfish truth and don’t they both know it? Harry giggles, and it’s more condescending and rough, than loving and sweet. He lets his hand slide along Liam’s back slowly, creating electricity and gentle goose bumps down Liam’s back even if Harry’s hand isn’t directly touching his skin. He stops by the hem of Liam’s jeans and rashly pulls his hand back – like the thief he is with quick, experienced fingers. 

“Don’t play with it”, Liam murmurs, when he realizes what Harry has taken, and pulls the boy by the neck back in again. His lips graze the skin of Harry’s jaw and for once he is far away from dreaming of any escape. 

The gun rests heavily between them in Harry’s hands. Death separates them. But it’s also what has brought them together. 

“It’s a lot heavier than mine”, he states and looks down at it. 

Of course it is. Liam has been using a gun since he was eleven and his drunk of a father told him he was too much of a dreamer to survive in this world. He will never forget the sound of the rifle and the sight of his father’s already degrading and rotten body falling to the floor. He’ll never forget the satisfaction he felt deep within his own heart. 

He’s used to holding a weapon of death and destruction in his hand, more used to it than Harry ever will be. Because Harry was fifteen when he first held a gun and he never killed anyone until years later. Though with Harry it barely matters – he has still more of that sweet darkness inside of him than Liam does, that kind of playful insanity one would need to survive. 

Harry is not a dreamer. He is a realist, and he sees the world for what it really is. 

His. 

So Harry presses his kisses in a practiced pattern over Liam’s face, until he meets his lips and lets his tongue delve in slowly. And love is divine and selfish, and filled with pain and suffering. And Harry is love. 

“Don’t hate me”, Harry mumbles against Liam’s lips. 

Three words uttered against tender skin, and Liam presses fingers and nails further into the boy’s thighs and brings him closer. Pushes himself in between his legs and can feel his own legs shake with the want and the need. 

“Never”, Liam says, though he has promised never to love. If he can’t escape this world, then he won’t settle and live by the rules either. 

And that’s when Harry presses the muzzle of the gun sharply into Liam’s left shoulder and says “Good. Because you might live”, before he fires. 

The world is painted red, and grey and black and Liam falls like his own father fell – down until he hits the ground and is left to be forgotten. With his sight blurry he watches as Harry jumps down from the bathroom sink and wipes the gun clean. He leaves it carefully behind on the toilet seat, because Harry might be a thief but he’d never steal from Liam. 

And the white walls and the white floors turn red with the unforgiving blood, until Liam only can see a white light. Then the rest of his world is white too. 

Like the wings of angels.

-

Liam wishes he was stupid enough to love and smart enough to hate. 

He thinks of years and a time when days were not as dark as they are now. He thinks of his kind mother who died of a poisonous disease within her. The poisonous disease she got from sucking on poisonous sticks. He thinks of Harry even though he shouldn’t. 

“You should’ve let the kid die.”

No flash of concern in the old man’s eyes – his boss. He sits by Liam’s hospital bed for two minutes and that’s the only explanation he’s given of what happened. 

He’s been in the hospital for weeks, going in and out of surgery twice, and during the whole time he has been dreaming of him. The divine and selfish love of pain and suffering. 

Harry. 

His mind of thorns and twigs has betrayed him. Liam wants to dream of escapes and other worlds, but there’s only one thing that occupies his mind through the drugs and the medicines. And for that he wishes more than anything that he had died. 

No one else visits him and no one cares if he’s alive, and that’s how Liam wants it to be. That’s how it has always been. Though strange people do talk to him – governments and policemen – and ask very thorough questions, but he never answers because he’s been taught better.

For one more week he stays there in the bed, unfamiliar like all the others he stays in, and he doesn’t sleep during any night – doesn’t trust his mind enough – and he imagines no one else in the world sleeps either, for this feeling inside of him is too big and too immersive to let anyone rest. 

And his head is empty of any unmade song about Harry to play. He doesn’t like the way the story goes and he wishes to rewind and do right. Let Harry be killed.

It aches and it burns within his body and mind, and he thinks he’s been cursed with the same poisonous disease his mother carried. Or maybe blessed. 

“The perfect opposites”, his mother used to talk about. The two sides of the same coin, what one lacks the other holds. 

But it doesn’t work like that, the world doesn’t function like that. And destiny has never been as sweet and sour, as Liam realizes the shot wound will be the second scar Harry has left on his young body. 

Liam doesn’t need to hear the story of the star-crossed lovers to know how his and Harry’s story will end. It started in death and destruction and will lead to nothing better. 

But still. 

-

In what story doesn’t the dreamer fall in love, but the realist does? In their story. 

But their story is one of many endings and if Liam had it his way, then he would fall madly in love with the other boy. But he can’t. 

He wonders if the world will one day be too big for them and they won’t find each other. For a few months he even worries. It hasn’t ever been this long in between their meets.  
But then he realizes that the world is in fact too small for them and Liam finds Harry in the steaming summer rain, on a street in Venice. Hips dance in the rain, sways back and forth like they’re trying to tell Liam another secret. Another truth or lie. And Liam watches as Harry surrenders, like in a blissful prayer, and gets down on his knees on the wet, glistening ground. 

Hands reach the sky and he smiles. 

“You should be dead”, he says and his eyes sparkle in the rain, and Liam knows for a fact that the world isn’t fair. 

Harry bows his head like an obedient, good boy, and lets Liam feel him up from behind, search for a gun which isn’t there, and touch the hips that won’t leave his mind alone. He cruelly pulls the hips back to meet his crotch and his cold cheek slides up Harry’s wet hair and finally rests on Harry’s own, warm cheek. 

And Liam thinks that maybe he died after all and this is the paradise he’s been dreaming of, has been seeing in Harry’s eyes, and that maybe, somehow accidentally but nevertheless intentionally, he brought Harry with him. But Harry smells wet and sour and wrong, and Liam knows that this is nothing but the beautiful nightmare they’ve been stuck in from the beginning. 

“But I’m not”, he finally whispers into Harry’s ear, watches as cold rain practically steams from Harry’s skin, and he can feel Harry’s slightly tensed body relax, like he needed Liam to confirm that he isn’t just a ghost from his past. That he isn’t just a wrong which he failed to make right. 

And Liam thinks that he should just finish the job and kill Harry out here in the rain – a wet ending to the flaming beginning. 

“You tried to kill me.”

The rain has gone colder and Liam knows for a fact that this is another warning sent from above, or maybe a praise sent from below. Harry giggles quietly and it sends warmth and vibrations through Liam’s otherwise cold and rigid body. 

“I did try, yes”, he whispers in a teasing confirmation and then he daringly lowers his hands slowly, while lightning strikes above them in white and yellow, and his hands stop to a rest on top of Liam’s. “And I don’t regret it.”

Harry claws at Liam’s hands and roughly throws his head back so it collides with Liam’s nose. He covers it and feels blood running and maybe bones broken. Harry has gotten up from his knees, quick like a cat, and leaves Liam behind on the ground as he starts running. 

And Liam thinks of pulling his gun out, of shooting Harry in the back, aim to hurt, and finally shoot the stars that is Harry’s eyes. The boy stops running before he completely disappears and turns back to look at Liam. 

He smiles and Liam doesn’t reach for his gun. He doesn’t. 

-

“You don’t even love me”, Harry says calmly, and the corners of his mouth twitch up slightly like he doesn’t mind this fact at all. 

Maybe he prefers it, because it’s funnier that way, or Liam’s lack of love makes it okay for Harry to try and kill him. 

Liam stares at the boy, sitting on the floor of the dusty apartment and hugging thighs close and letting fingers sink into his own, chocolate curls. The sun hits him perfectly and reflexes on all the right colours, as well as makes particles of dust swim in front of Harry, like a sandstorm in a desert with Harry as the heart-breaking mirage. 

And Liam says “Maybe”, and Harry looks up at him, with a slight tension in his brows and he’s definitely not smiling now. But Harry is a master of poker faces, and quickly recovers, and gets up from his sunny spot on the floor. 

“You weren’t supposed to find this place, you know”, he says and walks over to one of the windows. He has to hit the frame a few times for it to open and let cold air in, and some of the white paint gets peeled off. 

Liam watches him from his seat, still not moving and he hasn’t been moving since Harry arrived, and he’s still holding on to his gun. It feels heavier than he’s used to. 

“You bought it in my name”, he states and Harry grins. 

He glances out the window at the street, breeze in his hair, and he gives a tiny shrug. There’s screaming on the street outside, shouting and a bang, and somehow Liam thinks that whatever is happening down there will be something the news will talk about later. 

And Liam wonders if Harry’s got anything to do with it as he suddenly turns back from the window, biting his lip and smiling like the fucking tease he is and says “Oops.”

And Liam imagines, or maybe he doesn’t, that sirens are heard somewhere in the distance, but Harry doesn’t seem to notice it or maybe he doesn’t care, because he’s getting closer to Liam now and his eyes are glowing, instead of sparkling, in the red-hot sun. 

He reaches fingers out to touch Liam’s still healing nose, and Liam doesn’t jerk his head to the side like his bodily instincts wants him to, and Harry seems pleased and pushes himself in between Liam’s legs. 

“I’m sorry about that”, he murmurs and traces bruised skin and bone like his fingers can cure any diseases and any wounds, and maybe they actually can. 

But Liam wishes more than anything that he can pull the trigger on Harry and make this all stop, make everything right. There’s a reason, though, that it’s easier to make things wrong than to make them right, and sometimes Liam thinks that reason is the boy in between his legs. 

He waits him out, Liam knows he’s waiting him out, with their legs lightly brushing through jeans, but Liam won’t grip him and pull him down. So, Harry takes matters into his own hands, and reaches down to cup Liam’s dick through his pants and their faces get in the same level, and there’s a triumphant smirk on Harry’s face. Because Liam has been hard since Harry stepped foot in the flat, and it’s only getting worse. 

“The thing is, though”, Harry says as he starts massaging slowly, and there’s really nothing Liam can do but close his eyes and _feel_ it. And it feels so much because it’s been so long, because doing this with other people is never as good as doing it with Harry, and the sirens – which are in the world getting louder and nearer – are barely even heard in Liam’s world. 

“The thing is”, Harry repeats into his ear. “That if I can’t kill you, then I’ll have to make you disappear in some other way.”

And then, there’s the distinctive sound of a _click_ and Harry’s lips are on his, licking and biting, and Liam opens his eyes and realizes that he’s stuck. He pulls at his arm and finds it chained to the broken radiator behind him, and suddenly the sirens are very loud and clear in his world as well. 

He glares and raises his gun as a warning, but Harry presses a kiss to the corner of his mouth and even dares to turn his back on Liam as he leaves. Because he hasn’t ever been afraid of any warnings or any threats, and, sure. Liam doesn’t shoot him in the back either, but he does shoot at the door as soon as it closes behind him, and if the bullets happen to hit Harry on the other side of the door, then, _all is well._

-

But, it isn’t like Liam hasn’t got friends in very high up places. 

Either Harry knows this, either he doesn’t. Either Harry is dead, except he isn’t. 

Liam’s been wanted in fifteen countries and, sure, it does take some time to get out of jail. But he will, eventually. Harry shows Liam that he’s got some friends high up as well, when he visits the high security prison without anyone batting an eyelid. 

Harry smirks, ever a show-off and smug, as he takes a seat on the other side of the impregnable glass window and waits for Liam to pick the phone up on the other side and say something, _anything._

He doesn’t and Harry slowly reaches his hand up and pulls the collar of his shirt to the side to reveal his collarbone. It’s covered with white bandages and bruises around, and it’s not until then Liam notices how pale the boy is. Maybe Harry’s collarbone is broken, maybe he’s supposed to be dead, what if he’s only here thanks to some miracle? 

He lifts the phone. 

“Look at what you’ve done to me, Li”, Harry says in the phone and Liam thinks _good, now the world will know that Harry is his_ and now they’re even. 

“You’ve fucked up, really bad”, Harry then continues and Liam thinks that Harry should tell him something he doesn’t already know, doesn’t have to remind him of the order his boss gave him which he failed to follow. Harry should tell him another story, something about other worlds and escaping, but he doesn’t. 

Liam knows how badly he has fucked up, can feel the spiral continuing down, down and down and it doesn’t matter what he does because he can’t fight his way back up again. There’s a reason he can’t fight his way back up again. 

There’s Harry. 

“Look around”, Liam says and glances around the glass box he’s in, the one Harry put him in, which still can’t separate them from each other. “I know I’ve fucked up.”

And then the boy smiles like he tries to fool Liam into that he’s sorry, when he actually isn’t, and reaches his hand up and places it palm flat on the glass. He seems to barely be able to hold back a laugh, but doesn’t move the hand away and Liam’s index finger moves. Traces every finger and thumb on his side of the glass, painting the hand like a memory. 

“Have you ever loved before?” he wonders, because he has to know if there’s been others. Others that have been put through this as well. Harry shakes his head, curls falling into his face and quickly pushing them back. 

Liam can’t find words for what that confession makes him feel. His finger continues to move and then he says, instead, “But you have been loved”, and Harry smirks. It isn’t even a question, because it’s obvious. A boy like Harry is impossible not to love. 

An hour passes with nothing but silence and then he leaves after pressing a kiss against the glass, lips teasing and making Liam want to crush the stupid glass in between them. He takes the handprint and lips with him in his memory and then he waits for his _eventually._

-

Three months in containment, three months with nothing but walls all around him and inmates that want him dead just as much as the rest of the world does. He can feel it just the same way as he feels as blood dripping from his fingers. 

There are times when he wishes he could paint, there are times he wishes he could sing and there are even times he wishes he could write, but all he can do is dream and once again he dreams of other worlds and he dreams about escaping with Harry. 

And then he gets released, because everyone is corrupted like that and he steals car after car, until he’s on a plane and then he finds himself in a luxurious hotel room. A penthouse, in a city full of lights. 

Liam listens to his shoes click against the cold, marble floor and echo against the walls in the completely trashed flat, until he hears water splashing and his steps grow quicker. It’s the light that leads him out, away from the darkness inside, and he feels like he’s walking in slow motion and the tunnel he’s in is only getting longer. 

There are reflections on every surface when he gets out on the balcony. It’s waves and worms dancing in light, mocking, and Liam has already pulled off his jacket when he sees the lifeless body, floating. He doesn’t think before he jumps in, doesn’t wonder _why_ because there is no such thing as _why_ anymore, and all he can do is grab the body, lift it and try to shake Harry until he wakes up. He curses, slaps Harry’s face, presses his lips against the boy’s and tries to force air down his lungs. 

This is not how it’s supposed to end, this is not a fitful ending to any story at all. 

And so, Harry splutters and breathes, and smiles when he opens his eyes and sees Liam. 

“You should stop trying to save me”, Harry mumbles and Liam glares, wants to punch Harry’s teeth in. 

But he knows Harry has a point – Harry has always a point – and he lets the boy circle arms around his neck, lets legs wrap around hips under the surface of the water and lean in to peck Liam’s lips slowly. 

And Liam doesn’t wonder right then what would’ve happened if he had been a few minutes too late, if the elevator up had been a bit slower or if the manager downstairs had asked him a third question, because he doesn’t want the answer. He wants this, wants to feel Harry’s skin and his fucking everything, and he can’t think. His mind is only a distant scream, a plea of making things right which he never does. 

He traps Harry in a corner, fumbles with belts and barely bothers discarding clothes in the water. The fucking itself is far from as satisfying as it should be after _seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks and months._ It’s too slow and not nearly enough. It won’t ever be enough. And Harry whispers filthy secrets in his ear, things even Liam wants to forget hearing, and bites into Liam’s shoulder until it bleeds when they reach a peak that seems to take centuries to get to. And Liam thinks that this is his third scar and knows the end is soon here. 

-

He sits in the armchair with legs hanging over the armrest and feet up in the air. Liam watches as his eyes finds the horizon and continues up, and then he smiles like he has found something amusing in the light, grey sky. 

“Domesticity, kids, marriage, love”, he says, feet wriggling and Liam stares. “What does it all matter? We’ll all just end up in the same place anyway – six feet under.”

Or in another world, but Liam doesn’t say that, doesn’t think that. He listens to the rain, hammering against the big windows and drilling against the surface of the pool through the open door and he thinks it’s a symphony, only for him, a symphony about Harry. 

And Harry smiles, cheekily, like he knows things about the world that Liam will never find out, never understand – maybe he does – and Liam asks, “Will you marry me?” like he’s talking about the right way to slice someone’s throat open and Harry says, “Sure”, like he already knows how to handle his razors. 

And so, they head down a street in the city of lights, hand in hand, until they find someone that joins them _until death do them part._ They don’t have any rings of glittering gold to put on their fingers, but Liam does pull out his handcuffs – those very special ones, the ones he hides when he isn’t with Harry – and locks each around their wrists, as a lifeline when in reality it only leads them to further doom. 

Harry’s kiss is bruising and aches, and there’s no choir of angels to sing for their happiness, to sing for _them._

Later, much later, Harry giggles into Liam’s mouth and throws the key from the balcony and into blinding lights. Liam grasps hips of ethereal sin and wants to argue, but there are only lips soft as rose petals and whispering of lies into each other’s ears. Lies of _forever._

They undress each other, using knives that cut dangerously too close to fragile skin because of the chains keeping them together, and Harry is all about the imperfections while Liam only sees the perfections. The perfection of the scar on Harry’s collarbone, his scar, new and round and red and ending on his shoulder blade. A bullet that went right through soft bones, piercing, and didn’t bury itself in flesh like the one in Liam’s shoulder did. 

And it’s not until much, much later that they use a bar to break themselves back apart, but still with the lone handcuff hanging around their wrists like metal bracelets with promises of _more_ and _later, later, later._

“You’re my hero”, Harry whispers and kisses his eyelids softly, then disappears in the night on easy tiptoes. Not afraid of threats or warnings. 

_And you’re my ruler,_ Liam thinks and doesn’t open his eyes to watch Harry go. 

-

There is no later. 

The later that would be anything for them is impossible and it has always been impossible, ever since their hands touched up until now. Their later doesn’t exist. All that exists for Liam is divine and selfish love of pain and suffering, and even now, in this world, that is taken away from him. 

Liam has been living with the philosophy that Harry is endless, immortal and something out of this world. He is the ruler of this world, a world without any escape, a world where all you can do it continue. And what would the world be without its grand King? _Nothing._

Still, there’s the gun to Liam’s head – cold, sharp, but familiar – and there’s the _third time’s a charm._ This is what everything has been leading up to, the chilly wind in their hair, the never-ending warnings of wrong and this is where it all ends. Liam doesn’t think he’s selfish when he thinks that time hasn’t been on their side, and that the constant perk of being able to find each other hasn’t been enough. He’s greedy, greedier than Harry ever will be, greedy enough for both of them. Greedy of life. 

There’s the simple rule of _not fucking up_ that his boss told him once and there are Liam’s poor attempt to following the rule and failing badly. They cheat death. And Liam has known since he was a child that cheating death never leads to any good. Not that there is any good left to lead to. Every sin has a price and it applies even for them. Liam doesn’t realize it until now, but knows by his own heart that Harry has known all this time. 

So, there’s the kick to the back of Liam’s knees, making him fall into a helpless mess – tired from the beating and carving his body has been put through – on the ground and then there’s Harry. Harry with the sparkling, green eyes full of life and secrets untold, Harry with the cheeky grin not that far from something obscene, Harry with the curls that defy every law of gravity, Harry with his hips that sway like he used to be a professional ballerina or stripper before this life. 

Harry with a cuff around his wrist matching the one around Liam’s. 

“This is how much I love you”, Harry says and steps onto the edge of the rooftop, demons growling no and angels singing yes, and then there’s nothing but air and the boy is gone. 

It feels like a train runs through his head, loud and hot and messy, and Liam’s boss steps out of the shadows. He tries to jump at him, maybe he even screams without knowing what for, and then he gets shot in the leg to make him stop. It doesn’t work, it’s doesn’t ache as much as it aches in his chest. It doesn’t take the edge away, but it does keep him still on the ground as the old man bends over him. 

“Now you’ve let him die”, he says with his rusty voice and –. “You’ll thank me later.”

And Liam tries to find ways to understand how their story went this wrong and he finds the answer somewhere in between his own lack of love and Harry’s unconditional love. They were wrong from the start – they should’ve loved and not loved in opposite ways. Always, that sweet, malicious opposite way of things. 

Liam has never been the prey, but always the predator and he has never felt this weak. He has never either been the hero, but always the villain and it’s thanks to being a hero that he’s here. 

He curses a life he doesn’t want to continue living and he hates a childhood that has stripped him of any possibility to love. Never has he hated the story of any star-crossed lovers as much as this one, he thinks, as he stares up into the sky and feels raindrops hit his face. Right, the wet ending to the flaming beginning. The pain takes over, completes him, and the black sky crashes down on him until he doesn’t feel anything at all. 

There’s nothing but dreaming, an inevitable ending, and other worlds. Escaping.


End file.
